The soap-manufacturing industry of today is not the soap industry your father once knew. Innovations and advancements in technology have propelled the industry far beyond what it was just a generation ago. Today, soaps and soap dispensers address and promote health and safety above all else. Touchless technology and closed dispensing systems are growing in popularity, and foam soap is gaining ground — it has already become a market mainstay.

“In the past, it was only about soap,” says Gregg Whiteman of GOJO Industries, Akron, Ohio. “Now our company is working with our partner distributors to build a strong message of well-being through hand hygiene.”

June Stahl agrees. “Today, we are working hard to promote the principle of clean hands for healthy living,” she says.

Stahl, president of Stahl Soap in East Rutherford, N.J., says there’s an extremely important educational message to be learned. “The fact is, both history and science have shown that cleanliness helps limit the spread of disease,” she explains.

“The key message to get out is ‘wash your hands,’ and the key effort is to put soap dispensers in places where it’s easy for people to wash,” says Allen Soden, president of DEB SBS Inc., Stanley, N.C. “We’re part of an industry movement to put dispensers in nontraditional places. It’s not exclusively about good hand-washing habits in bathrooms. It’s about good hand hygiene in offices, too. It’s important to have some kind of hand hygiene solution in work areas.”

Enviro-Foam
Lee Chen, vice president of the Institutional Chemical Group of the Rochester Midland Corp., Rochester, N.Y., says the newest thing in the soap market is foaming cleanser.

“Foam soap is based on market preference and the market’s perception that foam cleans better. That’s not necessarily true, but perception is sometimes reality.”

Dennis Vehr, marketing manager at DEB SBS, however, is enthusiastic about the effectiveness of foam. Vehr believes that it has a bright future and will soon grow to be a significant part of the market. According to him, foam is another way to minimize waste. He contends that using it cuts about one-third off the 30-second average time it takes to wash and rinse with liquid. Liquid, he says, pools at first and therefore takes more time to spread evenly over one’s hands.

There are other advantages, he say. “You get great topical coverage so you use less product to do the same job — 30 to 40 percent less soap,” Vehr adds. “That can add up to big savings in workplaces where employees are asked to wash frequently. In a large facility you can document the savings of thousands of gallons of water using foam soap.”

Vehr’s boss, Soden, is also a fan of foam soaps. He recently returned from a trip to New Mexico and Texas and saw the critical need for water in parched areas. “Saving water and washing hands go hand in hand,” he quips. “Foam soap absolutely uses less water to create bubbles. That has tremendous impact. I believe water costs are going to be a real challenge for America. Can our soap industry be helpful on this issue? The answer is yes.”

Soap users like foam, too. “It’s nice on the hands. Maintenance staffs like it because it’s easy to clean up. Risk compliance people like it because if any foam falls on the floor it dries up immediately, preventing slips and falls and therefore preventing litigation,” Soden adds.

But Nick Dissaro, vice president of Inopak Ltd., Ringwood, N.J., has adopted a wait-and-see attitude where foam soap is concerned. “I have yet to see antibacterial effectiveness in a foam soap. I don’t think there’s a market there yet. You’re adding so much air into the product you’re not really binding to the proteins on the skin, and it’s not really making the good contact needed to kill germs and get rid of debris. So I won’t rush into judgment,” he says.

Inopak has been testing the product to see if it’s viable, however. “Bigger companies have already marketed it, and it will be successful.” But Dissaro agrees the market is hot, despite the fact the jury is still out as to the soap’s effectiveness. “Here’s an interesting analogy: McDonalds doesn’t sell very good hamburgers, but they sure do sell a lot of them.”

Whiteman feels that touch-free or closed systems are important innovations today because end users continually strive for ways to make their washrooms more hygienic. “For a long time, touch-free soap dispensing technology has been borderline. It’s been available, but the technology wasn’t reliable. No one wants a touchless system that’s going to dispense at random, or when the lights are turned off and on.” Recent advancements, however, made touch-free soap delivery a viable and reliable option.

Closed to the Public
Soden touts the safety aspects of closed systems. “No one can puncture or vandalize such systems. They’re critical in ensuring a safe and sanitary product. I experienced a scary episode some years ago: In a nursing home supply room, I just happened to notice that one of our containers didn’t look right to me. I opened it up and saw that someone substituted Drano for hand soap. They did find and arrest the employee who did that.”

Shaking Things Up
Dissaro is seeing a transition in the health care and other markets from using antibacterial soaps to using hand sanitizers, coupled with a regular lotion hand soap.

“That’s been recent,” he says, “because the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) tested the effectiveness of antibacterial materials against alcohol-based hand sanitizers and concluded that hand sanitizers were very easy products to use. Not only that, they found that the efficacy of hand sanitizers was much better than antibacterial efficacy.”

Hand sanitizers, unlike antibacterials, are composed of over 60 percent of ethyl alcohol, based on what the law requires, according to Dissaro. “Usually 61 percent is a sufficient amount,” he explains. “Anything over that tends to be a little more flammable so we stay away from that. Also, alcohol can dry the skin. It’s very formula sensitive. Not all alcohol-based hand sanitizers are the same, but they do have the same efficacy with over 60 percent alcohol. But if it’s going to dry out someone’s hands at a hospital, school or nursery, you don’t want to use something that will do that. So you’ve got to get emollients in it by using several different humectants. That tends to help the skin recover,” he says.

Do antibacterial soaps lead to stronger, more disease-resistant bacteria? Dissaro hasn’t seen any data to support that. “Are we looking 10, 20 years down the line? I’m not sure. I am concerned with the personal care market where they’re using a lot of antibacterials in toothpaste, and in hair shampoos. That has bothered me. Not only is it a professional product, it’s being put into everything. That could be a problem down the road.”

Chen, too, doesn’t agree with the contention that antibacterial soaps produce resistant strains of bacteria. “The soap acts as a cleaning agent to remove microbes from your hands. If you’re removing them from your hands, how does the microbe develop resistance? It’s true in concept that certain bacteria can build an immunity to certain types of sanitizers, so they’re harder to kill. In certain environments, people could, if necessary, alternate use of certain types of sanitizers. But in hand washing, I don’t believe resistance is much of a factor.”

Stopping the Spread
Today’s heightened awareness of SARS and hospital-acquired sicknesses has increased business for the U.S. soap industry. Dissaro cites statistics that 110,000 people die from infectious disease each year in hospitals. “But statistics from Coney Island Hospital and others show that infection rates have gone down 30 to 50 percent because of awareness of the importance of hand washing and the heightened use of sanitizing soap products,” he says.

“Nurses are required to wash their hands between patients’ rooms — fluff a pillow, wash your hands. And a hand sanitizer is a perfect product for them to use because it takes only 30 seconds to do so.”

Says Whiteman, “Most people know that hands are the most common way to spread germs that may cause illness. Now more than ever people are taking proactive steps to help reduce the spread of germs. Years ago our company began offering an instant hand sanitizer as a germ-killing hand-hygiene product for medical professionals. It soon became clear that the same convenient, fast-acting germ-killing power was needed by everyone from food service crews and teachers to office workers. Since SARS, more people than ever are asking for our product. It’s convenient, accessible and gentler on hands than soap and water.”

According to him, the recommendations of the CDC and the WHO (World Health Organization) to use alcohol-based hand hygiene products as a first line of defense against the spread of germs have put products like theirs at the forefront of consumer awareness. “It’s been a huge paradigm shift.”

Soden reports that his business and the industry in general have grown significantly since the skyrocketing awareness of good hand hygiene due to SARS outbreaks, the anthrax and flu scares, and the Norwalk virus that infected cruise ship passengers. “There’s no question that a great many people would have been a lot less sick had their hands been cleansed adequately.

“Those outbreaks were economic disasters with SARS closing down businesses in Canada and elsewhere.”

It has become apparent that the soap industry’s innovative antimicrobial and sanitizing products, touchless technology, and continuing education about the importance of proper hand hygiene will help produce a healthier environment for everyone. And by reducing illness and, subsequently, absenteeism, a healthier economy will also result.

Jordan Fox is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer and editor.




POSTED ON: 12/1/2003